It is one of those embarrassing historical ironies that modern science could
not have arisen except in the atmosphere of a Christian world-and-life view.
Nevertheless, the scientific community today persists in playing the prodigal
by assuming an antagonistic stance against the Christianity of divine
revelation. Hypnotized by Darwin's evolutionary scheme and enchanted with the
products of scientific technology, modern man has granted science a secularized
godship and bows before it in fetish idolatry.

The pitting of science against revelation is certainly odd. For, a certain
state of affairs is needed for the scientific endeavor to be meaningful or
fruitful. The scientist must believe that the state of affairs is conducive to
science, or he would not venture into the scientific enterprise. He must
believe that there is a world of things and processes that can be known, and
that he himself sustains a relationship to this world that allows him to know
these objects and events. But then, what reason can the scientist give for his
belief that the state of affairs is actually conducive to science? Why is the
world such as it is and not otherwise?

The Predicament for
Science

Here the scientist, who depends on the self-sufficiency of his
logico-empirical procedures, is in a predicament. His response is usually to
make various hypotheses about the world and then point to the beneficial
results that flow from such hypotheses; he gives, can give, no reason for those
hypotheses -- they just are, because they work. If pressed, or if he is
philosophically inclined, he may even go so far as to say that his
"working hypotheses" have no reason unless it be "chance."

In other words, the consistent naturalistic scientist seems to hold to an
irrational set of beliefs about the state of affairs simply in order that his
"rational" scientific endeavor may get off the ground. It is rather
obvious that prior to any scientific endeavor we must begin either from
speculation (about "chance" hypotheses) or from revelation. The Scriptures
(of the one Person who knows) reveal how it is that this world, and
man in it, are such as to make scientific endeavor meaningful. The state of
affairs that exists is due to the creation and providence of the sovereign God.
If science (so-called) could actually refute the truths of Scripture, then
there would be no actual basis for science at all. The desire of the scientific
community to pit its enterprise and conclusions against Christian revelation is
ultimately suicidal.

The Question of Origins

The antagonism between science and Scripture historically came to a head in
the question of origins. The Christian asserts that the world is
conducive to the scientific task precisely because God created it that way.
(And this creation is revealed to be "nature," a completed work of
God not subject to the continuing progressive development posited by
evolutionary theory). Even within the Christian community, remnants of this
bitter confrontation are still evident in the dispute between those who hold to
a "mature" (completed) creation, and those well-meaning scientists
and theologians who would accommodate to the "science-in-vogue" by
holding to "theistic evolution." Yet, it must be remembered, the
non-Christian naturalistic scientist considers the "fact" of
evolution as the supreme case against the Bible.

Despite the enthusiasms of modern science in pursuing study and research on
the "origin of life," it must be recognized that all questions of
origins fall outside the realm of empirical science! The methodology of science
is simply not equipped to deal with events that are neither recurring or
repeatable under experimental control. In the matter of origins, where the
scientist can neither observe nor experiment, one is left to depend either on
guesswork speculation or infallible revelation. The choice should be simple;
for the Christian, it is.

Naturalistic science will usually retort that examination of present
materials and processes enables us to extrapolate backwards so as to determine
what must have occurred. But here again, forsaking his own basic methods, the
scientist is speculating (not observing) on the course of historical
development; he assumes (but cannot show experimentally) that not only is
nature uniform now but always has been, that processes seen today have always
worked as they do now. (The "theistic evolutionist" likewise assumes
that today's processes must be basically similar to God's creative activities.
This, in effect, is to say that creation was "immature," that God did
not finish his creative work at a point in the past.) To pretend to answer
questions about origins by extrapolating the observable present into the
unobservable past is to reason in a circle; it is to forsake the proper
descriptive role of science and to make it an arbitrary determiner of the past
instead.

The Answer: the Triune
God

The origin and nature of the universe depend upon the Triune God. The
scientist cannot proceed without a prior belief (acknowledged or not) in the
sovereign Creator. Obviously also, the doctrines of creation and providence as
found in Scripture are mutually necessary; to believe the one is to believe the
other. The scientist too must believe in the controlling providence of God over
the processes of the creation, or else he wouldn't be a scientist.

Years ago, David Hume noted that the scientists proceed on a scientifically
unfounded, yet critically essential belief in the uniformity of observable
nature. Yet, he pointed out, there is no reason (beyond psychological habit)
for the naturalistic scientist to expect the sun to come up tomorrow. Science
as an autonomous self-contained discipline has no honest answer to Hume. But if
science, properly conceived, subordinates itself to God's revelation, then it
knows why the sun will come up for it knows that God providentially controls
all the operations of his created universe in a regular and dependable fashion.

The scientist must presuppose a regulated universe, and in so doing he
presupposes an ordered creation. Every scientist makes certain basic
assumptions about reality and knowledge, consciously or otherwise; and these
thoughts are religiously motivated: "That which is known of God is plainly
seen in them, for God has revealed it to them. For since the creation of the
world His unseen attributes, not only His infinite power but also His divine
nature, have been perceived, being understood by the things created"
(Romans 1:19-20).

The Question of
Relationship

It should be clear at this point what the relationship between science and
Scripture properly is. The presupposition of any meaningful scientific endeavor
is the truth of Christian theism as given in God's Word; if the world is not
what Scripture says it is then science is not possible. The sovereign God
controls all the operations of his creation, thus providing the uniformity we
see in nature, a connection between the mind and the material world, a union of
logic and facts, and standards of absolute truth.

The relation between science and Scripture is not one of synthesis between
two tentative theories; rather, it must be one of subordination. If science is
not subordinate of Scripture, then Scripture must be subordinate to science and
science itself will be autonomous. If science is independent of revelation,
then nature must be assumed to be self-sufficient and containing in itself the
principles for its own interpretation. Thus God is either identified with
nature (the error of pantheism) or is shoved out of the picture altogether (the
practical result of deism). Either God is God, or science deifies itself.

The activity of science is never impartial; there is always a substructure
of metaphysical or religiously motivated belief. If there were not, science
would be futile, its feet firmly planted in mid-air. The naturalistic scientist
claims to work with "the facts." Yet even to speak of
"facts" is to make some metaphysical declaration concerning the
existence of factuality itself. The only "honest" metaphysics for the
philosopher who rejects God's revelation is an agnostic solipsism, an "I-don't-know-and-it-can't-be-known-ism."
Yet, if there is one metaphysics besides Christianity that the scientist
abhors, it is solipsism. But, on what basis can he discredit this
"logical" position? What source of information can refute it?

The Basis: Scripture's
Truth

The only basis, the only presupposition, that allows for factuality and the
scientific enterprise is the truth of Scripture. Without the Bible, science has
no order in nature to expect, and the scientist finds himself adrift between
abstract timeless logic and pure ultimate potentiality - or "pure
chance." The world of actuality is only an accident, and the
"universe" (if there is such a thing) cannot be known since there is
no known connection between sense experience and analytic thinking, no reason
why irrational dreams are not as true as rational thought.

The scientist must believe that he confronts a system when he does
his work, or else the work would be futile. That system is either the result of
the purposeful plan of the sovereign God, or it is the reflection into the
unknowable "universe" of the ordering mind of man - which in its turn
is equally unknowable. If the scientist refuses to presuppose the truth of
Scripture (which is actually an epistemological impossibility), he will have
neither a true universe to investigate or any reason to suppose he has the
ability to do so. The Bible provides the only possible presupposition for all
thought and science.

We turn down a dark alley if we do not submit every discipline, every
thought, to God's absolute authority. We must begin with Scripture and let it
interpret the scientific enterprise. The Word of Christ the Lord must be given
first place in everything. If we neglect to let Scripture govern every academic
pursuit, we have fallen prey to the shifting sands of human opinion.

The Archaic
"Modern" Approach

Adam and Eve took the "modern" approach; they wanted to interpret
the world apart from supernatural revelation. The question of what were the
qualities and nature of a particular fruit and what effects from eating it
might result, were "scientific" questions to be answered by
independent research apart from the Word of an authoritative Lord. Why should
we repeat their error? It should be obvious that if man, before his disabling
fall into sin, needed God's supernatural revelation to interpret his world
properly, how much more do we who live under the effects of sin! The
methodology of Adam and Eve, being inspired by Satan, has come to be exalted
and followed by all unrepentant sinners and is the substance of "science"
as commonly conceived.

The only true science, the only science worthy of the name, proceeds from
the truth of God's supernatural revelation to fulfill its divinely given task
of subduing God's creation (Genesis 1:28). To attempt science apart from God's Word
and authority is spiritual suicide for the effort itself and the scientist who
attempts it. Man is never autonomous; he is always a creature dependent upon
his Creator God. In science, as in philosophy, culture, or politics,
"except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that built it"
(Psalm 127:1).

Greg Bahnsen, a junior at Westminster Theological Seminary is a graduate in
philosophy from Westmont College(Santa Barbara), [1970-1971].